Central Valley

58,000 Pounds of Ground Beef Recalled

Almost 60,000 pounds of ground beef produced in California and bound for the National School Lunch Program have been recalled because it contains pieces of plastic. And we're not talking Happy Meal toys. According to Food Safety News, the federal government's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSI ... More >>

The Masumoto Family Farm's The Perfect Peach South Pasadena Reading

Does one dare eat a peach? Prufrock's parpahrased question is, of course, loaded, but taken on a surface level, it's one worth answering. Even in summer, the time of peaches, as we're often told, grocery store specimens often turn to mush with one bite. The flavor may be cloyingly sweet and one-d ... More >>

Could L.A. Become a Honeybee Mecca? The Backwards Beekeepers Are on It

You Will Go Broke Living in L.A., But Not as Much as in New York

Greater Los Angeles is the biggest town in a state, California, that has more billionaires than any other. We're home to Malibu, Beverly Hills and Bel Air. Real estate prices here are often record-breaking. But the gap between the Real Housewives and the rest of us is huge, and maybe that's the rea ... More >>

Los Angeles Has America's Most Polluted Air?

L.A is the capital of many things. Few of them are good things. At least not lately, it seems. A day after it was announced that Los Angeles is America's traffic-congestion Mecca once again (breaking news, that), we bring you the American Lung Association's annual "Most Polluted Cities" list:

What Music Do Immigrant Janitors Listen To? And Other Questions at L.A.'s EMP Conference

The Seattle-based EMP Pop Conference -- Shangri-La for music nerds -- has this year split into five regional ones, and the Los Angeles incarnation starts tonight. Musicians, scholars, and music writers from all over Southern California will discuss and debate, with specific focus on everything from ... More >>

Cesar Chavez vs. Jesus Christ: Google Weighs In

Cesar Chavez was no saint, but he did do the very Christian thing when he saw an entire class of people, Latino and Filipino farm workers, suffering in slum living conditions, putting in grueling hours under the sun, getting paid illicit wages, and soaking in pesticides in Central Valley fields. He ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Purple and Green Kohlrabi

Brassica oleracea started as wild cabbage native to many parts of Europe. Natural (and a little careful unnatural) selection eventually shaped it into all the modern types of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts and ultimately, nature's sculptural coup -- the oddly-formed kohlrab ... More >>

Los Angeles Winter Storms Intensified By ... Farm Irrigation?

The Central Valley is America's salad bowl. But providing the world with all that food -- $37.5 billion worth in 2010, making California the nation's top agricultural state -- takes a lot of water. And that has strange consequences, according to a new UC Irvine study. Turns out that some of that i ... More >>

What's In Season at the Farmers Market: Autumn Sugar Cane

Thanks to C&H, sugar cane will always be associated with a Hawaiian hibiscus flower in full bloom. For good reason -- Hawaii has the rainfall to support this thirstiest of crops. To grow sugar cane, you need at least six acre-feet (six foot depth over one acre) of water (that's almost two million ... More >>

Read This Now: The New York Times' Profile of Christopher Kimball

If you've ever followed a Cook's Illustrated recipe the way it is intended to be followed -- that is, precisely -- and, as pleased as punch as you may have been with the outcome, nonetheless still thought, Gee, they take the fun out of cooking -- well, that's sort of the point. "I hate the idea tha ... More >>

Gas Prices Could Reach All-Time High in L.A. as Some Stations Expected to Shut Down

Southern California is an island of gas-price hell this week. One station in Calabasas is charging nearly $6 ($5.89 to be exact) a gallon for high-octane fuel, the Costco in Simi Valley has run out of regular-grade gas (with other stations expected to follow suit), and one expert tells us that all-t ... More >>

In-N-Out Cuts Ties With Slaughterhouse

In-N-Out will no longer use beef from a Central California slaughterhouse that is being investigated for cow abuse, the AP and the San Jose Mercury News reports. Central Valley Meat Co. of Hanford is being investigated to see if beef from sick cattle entered the human food supply. In-N-Out Burger ... More >>

Grandaddy - Fonda Theatre - 8/13/12

Grandaddy Henry Fonda Theatre 8-13-12 Better than...drinking $8 Pabsts at home. Up until the last week, the Grandaddy quintet had not performed on stage together in six years. How many bands have come and gone since that time? How many bands will form and break-up before Grandaddy returns to Los A ... More >>

Marijuana Law Would Give California Dispensaries a Chance Against Federal Prosecution

When feds bust down the doors of medical marijuana dispensaries in California and -- lo and behold -- find cannabis, operators can be liable for some serious time behind bars. Medical pot is legal in California, you say. True, but the federal government doesn't recognize it. To them pot shop owners ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Market: Eggplants an Eggplant Primer

Local farmers with the field space in the desert areas sometimes are able to give us a limited eggplant crop in the early spring. But eggplant, a close relative of tomatoes, potatoes and peppers, generally is intolerant of cold weather. A few chilly nights (they don't even have to reach below freez ... More >>

California Bullet Train's Promise of Jobs is Overstated, Says UCLA

That $100 billion publicly financed bullet train that would connect Angelenos to the Bay Area for the low, low one-way price of $120 (more, in some cases, than airfare) has more problems than Jay-Z. We reported recently that Golden State voters no longer support the thing: You seem to think buildin ... More >>

America's War on Mexicans — Embodied in Arizona's S.B. 1070 — Has Gone Too Far

California Bullet Train Would Die if Voters Had Their Way

LA Weekly has been expressing doubts about California's proposed $100-billion-plus bullet train for a few years now. Although we some criticism for it, it looks like a majority of you are starting to have the same second thoughts. In fact, some of the highest resistance to the high-speed rail proje ... More >>

Richard Riordan Woos Latinos For Republican Party: Will They Join The Juan Percent?

Ex-L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan wants to recruit more Latinos to the Republican party, and he's putting some of his considerable money behind the effort. Smart move: The latest U.S. Census figures suggest that Latinos will be the biggest ethnic group in California, perhaps by the end of 2013. And the ... More >>

'Sons of Anarchy' Producer Pisses off L.A. Street Artists by Painting Over New Downtown Mural

Someone just painted over a mural that went up at Willow and Santa Fe in downtown Los Angeles only one-and-a-half months ago. It was painted by street artists Zes, Push and UGLAR on the side of a building adjacent to the graffiti-themed LALA Gallery, apparently in celebration of the gallery's openi ... More >>

The Wednesday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

You can't replace the feeling of lounging on the couch with a scrunched-up newspaper. But with the web, at least you don't need to worry about getting ink on your hands and bagel. Here's a roundup of some food-related stories from our country's newspapers this week. Lucky for us, it's mostly free. F ... More >>

Mission Nearly Accomplished for California's Gay Rights Movement?

Once full marriage equality is wrapped up in California, there's not much left for the gay rights movement to do in one of the most tolerant states in the nation, right? Wrong. "We're in a period of a different kind of activism," says Courage Campaign founder Rick Jacobs. "Things have advanced ... More >>

Josh Macciello Convinced L.A. He Was in Line to Buy the Dodgers. But He Was Really a Fraud

Arthur S. Rodríguez, Cesar Chavez's Grandson, Arrested in Occupy L.A. Raid: UFW 'Proud'

UFWArthur Rodriguez.​Arthur S. Rodriguez, the grandson of labor and civil rights leader Cesar Chavez, was arrested as part of the raid on the L.A. City Hall Occupy encampment last week. Arturo S. Rodriguez, his father and the president of the United Farm Workers group that Chavez made famous ... More >>

$100 Billion Bullet Train

Democrats fray as cost skyrockets, feds bail, and Amtrak starts to look good

What's In Season at the Farmers Markets: Sugar Cane Making Your Own Sugar From Zombie Survivalist Max Brooks

Felicia FriesemaBlack sugar cane from Central Valley Farmers (Fresno) at the Hollywood market.​It's not often we get to advocate eating sugar in this column. Often, it's the opposite: fruits and veggies. But sugar cane is finally in season, the last big seasonal sweet bomb before we hit the bi ... More >>

Marijuana Growers Find a Home on California Farmland?

realcaliforniamilk.comWhat are those cows munching on?​Since California legalized medical marijuana in 1996, growers of pot have, well, grown wise, evolving from a campaign that emphasized the cancer-afflicted grandma growing pot on her windowsill (way to legalize it) to the reality of large-s ... More >>

Tater Tots Food Fight: Fab Hot Dogs vs. Dog Haus

T. NguyenTater tots at Fab Hot Dogs​ The tater tot means an an awful lot of things to many people. Advocates for change in public school lunch programs, for example, tout the tot as a symbol for all that is wrong with cafeteria food ("We don't serve Tater Tots," a Central Valley school distri ... More >>

Red, White and Blue Notes

Sabrina Renee Robinson: Boyfriend Lured by Promise of Sex Handcuffed, Beaten, Tortured by Suspect Over Alleged Other Woman

halloweencostumes4u.com​It was every man's fantasy: His girlfriend called and wanted to have kinky sex. She slipped the handcuffs on him, but before it was over, she had allegedly cut him with a knife, hit him with the barrel of a shotgun, punched him, and dripped hot candle wax on him (well, ... More >>

Music Picks: Adele, Wanda Jackson, Bootsy Collins, Buffalo Springfield, Gayngs, Amor de Dias

Also, Cerebral Ballzy, Sea of Bees, Shabazz Palaces, Miasmal and others

Roland Palencia, New Equality California Executive Director, Repeats Old Excuses for Proposition 8 Loss

Debra EvansEQCA Executive Director Roland Palencia​On Monday, Roland Palencia was named the new executive director of Equality California, the statewide gay rights group. He is replacing Geoff Kors, who built the organization into a political powerhouse while also playing a major role in the ... More >>

$9 Billion California High Speed Rail Route: The Planning is So Inept That it's Souring Residents from North to South

California bullet train: little rooting for the route​Investigative reporter Tracy Wood writes today about the inept, cloaked, and somewhat creepy PR strategy followed by the California High Speed Rail engineers and Parsons Brinckerhoff, who have not followed basic transparency and outreach ru ... More >>

What's in Season at the Farmers Markets: Sweet Winter Brussels Sprouts

Felicia FriesemaBrussels sprouts on the stalk at the South Central Farmers Cooperative booth at the Hollywood market.​ It was the vegetable so many kids loved to hate. Too bad, as it was mostly because parents were overcooking it into a sulphur-smelling, dull green blob of goo. Yum. Thankfull ... More >>

More iPhone Fun: "Wine Wherever" Tasting App

​You know how wine tasting goes. You spend a lovely afternoon sipping Chardonnay and Pinot, making mental notes of what you love. But inevitably, you find yourself in the liquor store a week later going, "Was it this vineyard's Syrah or Zin that we liked? And where did we have that great sp ... More >>

The Thursday Edition: A Roundup of Newspaper Food Stories

SapphireBlue22stack of newspapers​What's the country reading today food-wise? Here's a roundup of some of the food-related stories from other newspapers, many of which print their food sections mid-week. And remember, even if you don't actually buy papers these days (or not; this paper is free ... More >>

David Dreier Wins* California Congressional District 26 In Election 2010, Laughing While Opponent Russell Warner Eats Epic Dustcloud Of Defeat

​We're calling it: David Dreier (R) of the northeastern L.A. suburbs is your next representative for California Congressional District 26. He beat opponent Russell Warner (D) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But than ... More >>

Buck McKeon Wins* California Congressional District 25 In Election 2010, Obliterating Opponent Jackie Conaway In Gladiator-Style Death Match

​We're calling it: Buck McKeon (R) of Bakersfield is your next representative for California Congressional District 22. He beat opponent Jackie Conaway (D) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to sleazy incumb ... More >>

Curren Price Wins* California State Senate District 26 In Election 2010, Dropkicking Opponent Nachum Shifren Into Culver City Gutter

​We're calling it: Curren Price (D) of Culver City is your next representative for California State Senate District 26. He beat opponent Nachum Shifren (R) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to sleazy incumb ... More >>

Alex Padilla Wins* California State Senate District 20 In Election 2010, Feeding Opponent Kathleen Evans To Lions Before Cheering Valley Crowds

​We're calling it: Alex Padilla (D) of the San Fernando Valley is your next representative for California State Senate District 20. He beat opponent Kathleen Evans (R) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to s ... More >>

Jeff Gorell Wins* California State Assembly District 37 In Election 2010, Beating His Manly Chest To The Tune Of Opponent Ferial Masry's Bitter Tears

​We're calling it: Jeff Gorell (R) of Ventura is your next representative for California State Assembly District 37. He beat opponent Ferial Masry (D) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to sleazy incumbent f ... More >>

Cameron Smyth Wins* California State Assembly District 38 In Election 2010, His Triumphant Warcry Shattering The Very Soul Of Opponent Diana Shaw

​We're calling it: Cameron Smith (R) of Santa Clarita is your next representative for California State Assembly District 38. He beat opponent Diana Shaw (D) by a landslide. *OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in and the polls haven't closed. But thanks to sleazy incum ... More >>

Kevin De Leon, Edward Hernandez Win* California State Senate Districts 22, 24 In Election 2010, Wishing They Had Opponents To Conquer

Edward Hernandez​We're calling it: Kevin De Leon (D) of South Pasadena and Edward Hernandez (D) of L.A. proper are your next representatives for California State Senate Districts 22 and 24, respectively. Both ran unopposed. *OK, so you can't exactly win a race in which no one else running.

Surprise: Rest Of The Shoo-Ins Win* California State Senate, Assembly And Congressional Districts In Election 2010, Banding Together For Mass Extermination Of Opponents

In a startling upset, Gerrymandering Congressman Howard Berman wins again​*OK, so we fibbed in the headline. The final results aren't in. But -- thanks to sleazy incumbent fixing of elections in California by the Berman brothers -- the new crop of California Senators, Assemblymen and Congressm ... More >>

Proposition 19 Dreams of Legal Weed

Bruce Margolin has defended 25,000 pot cases and Timothy Leary. Now he's primed for ganja tourists and sensimilla spas

Admiral Radley: the Other California

Quartet pays tender tribute to the Central Valley

Heath Bars, Lapin and Mash

Fusion Cuisine in Pasadena

Setting the (Gay) Wedding Table

Wiser, more diffuse, battle-savvy gay-rights groups craft a 2010 ballot measure for California

Golden State's Beer Warriors, All Hopped Up

The ale-intensive gastropub serves some of L.A.'s best burgers and a mind-blowing beer float with brown-bread ice cream from Tai Kim's cult gelateria Scoops